Pill container



Feb. 4, 1969 N. OWE-N5 3,425,518

PILL CONTAINER- Filed Sept. 5. 1967 INVEN'IOR. NICOLI OWENS ATTORNEYS3,425,578 PILL CONTAINER Nicoli Owens, Box 454, 16 Scene St., Acton,Ontario, Canada Filed Sept. 5, 1967, Ser. No. 665,457 US. Cl. 215-9 4Claims Int. Cl. B65d 55/02, 83/04; A61 1/00 ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSUREBackground of the invention This invention relates to containers forpills and tablets and is concerned particularly with safety closures forsuch containers.

Pill containers are normally provided with closures in the form ofscrew-caps, snap-on caps, plugs or stoppers to retain their contents.Once such a closure is removed the contents of the container becomeaccessible to children, or may easily be spilled. In my Canadian PatentNo. 754,906 issued on Mar. 21, 1967, there is described a pill containerhaving a safety closure, apart from the normal closure, which minimizesthe risk that a small child shall gain access to the contents of thecontainer, or that the contents shall be spilled. The present inventionis concerned with an improved construction of safety closure for such acontainer.

Summary of the invention According to the invention, the safety closurecomprises a .pair of flat, overlapping gate members which gate membersare displaceable relative to one another between a first position atwhich they obstruct the discharge opening of the container and a second,nonobstructing position, and a resilient web interconnecting the gatemembers for biasing the gate members to said first position. One gatemember is formed with a guide slot therein and the other gate member hasa pin engaging in the slot for constraining movement of the gate membersbetween the first and second positions. Each gate member is formed witha manually engageable extension which projects through a respective slotin the wall of the container, whereby the gate members may be movedagainst the resilient bias to the second, nonobstructing position.

Brief description of the drawings One embodiment of the invention willnow be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanyingdrawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a safety closure in accordance withthe invention;

FIGURE 2 is an exploded perspective view of a pill containerincorporating the safety closure of FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 3 is a plan view of the pill container with its closure capremoved, the safety closure being in its normal position; and

FIGURE 4 is a plan view of the pill container, in which the safetyclosure has been moved to a nonobstructing position.

' United States Patent Olfice 3,425,578 Patented Feb. 4, 1969Description of the preferred embodiment The pill container shown in thedrawings comprises a container body 1 having a cylindrical side wall anda base 2 which closes the lower end of the container, the upper end ofthe container body being open to provide a discharge opening 3. Asnap-on closure cap 4 is provided to close the discharge opening of thecontainer,

the closure cap being formed with a downward-1y extending flange 5, andan inwardly projecting lip 6 which is adapted to engage the underside ofa thickened portion or rib 7 adjacent to the discharge opening. Anauxiliary safety closure 8 is mounted within the container adjacent tothe discharge opening.

The safety closure is a one-piece moulding of resilient plasticsmaterial, such as polyethylene, and comprises a pair of overlapping gatemembers 9, 10, which are displaceable relative to one another and areinterconnected by an integrally formed, resilient, upstanding web 11.The lower gate member 9 is an annular disc having a central circularaperture 12, and is formed with a radial extension 13 and an upstandingpin 14. The gate member 10 is also an annular disc having a centralcircular aperture 15, and is formed with a radial extension 16 and ashort arcuate slot 17 in which the pin 14 engages, as illustrated inFIGURE 2, for constraining the relative movements of the gate members.

In the assembled container, the safety closure is retained in positionin the container by the radial extensions 13 and 16, which extendthrough a pair of diametrically opposed slots 18, 19 in the side wall ofthe container body 1. To facilitate the insertion of the safety closure,the inner surface of the cylindrical wall of the container body 1 isformed with short keyways 20 extending from the slots 18 and 19 to theopen end of the body.

The gate members are normally urged by the resilient web 11 into theposition illustrated in FIGURE 3, in which the central apertures of thediscs overlap to obstruct the discharge opening of the container andprevent the discharge of tablets, such as the tablets 21. The radialextensions 13 and 1'6 are manually engageable, as illustrated in FIGURE4, for displacing the gate members to a position at which the centralapertures thereof are aligned, whereby the discharge of tablets ispermitted.

It will be seen that the safety closure cannot be removed from thecontainer easily, and in order to extract the contents of the containerit is necessary to engage the radial extensions '13 and 16 manually.Accidental removal of the tablets 2.1 is therefor prevented, and thetablets 21 are difficult of access to a small child.

For additional safety the pin 14 may be formed with a small knob orbutton at its upper end, so that the pin may be snapped into the slot 17and retained therein by the knob or button.

What I claim as my invention is:

'1. A pill container having a wall provided with a discharge opening anda safety closure within the container adjacent to the discharge opening,wherein the safety closure comprises a pair of flat, overlapping gatemembers which gate members are dis'pla'ceable relative to one anotherbetween a first position at which they obstruct the discharge openingand a second, non-obstructing position, and a resilient webinterconnecting the gate members for biasing the gate members to saidfirst position, one gate member being formed with a guide slot thereinand the other gate member having a pin engaging in the slot forconstraining movement of the gate members between the first and secondpositions, and each gate memher having a manually engageable extensionprojecting through a slot in the container wall whereby the gate membersmay be moved against the resilient bias of the Web to the second,non-obstructing position.

2. A pill container having a cylindrical wall, the container beingclosed at one and open at the other end, the Wall being formed with apair of diametrically opposed -slots adjacent to the open end, and theinner surface of the wall being formed with a pair of keyways extendingfrom the slots to the open end, a closure cap for said open end, and asafety closure within the container adjacent to the open end, the safetyclosure comprising a pair of flat, overlapping gate members which gatemembers are displaceable relative to one another between a firstposition at which they obstruct the discharge of the container contentsand a second, nonobstructing position, and a resilient webinterconnecting the gate members for biasing the gate members to saidfirst position, one gate member being formed with a guide slot thereinand the other gate member having a pin engaging in the slot forconstraining movement of the gate members between the first and secondpositions, and each gate member having a manually engageable extensionprojecting through a respective slot in the container wall whereby thegate members may be moved against the resilient bias of the web to thesecond, non-obstructing position.

3. A pill container according to claim 1, wherein the safety closure isa one-piece moulding of plastics material.

4. A pill container according to claim 3, wherein the gate members areannular discs Whose apertures are aligned when the gate members are insaid second position.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 9/1960 Shaw 206-42 9/ 1967Henderson 220-41 GEORGE T. HALL, Primary Examiner.

